Discovery Green

We've been trying to do as many fun, cheap activities as we can before I start work. Yesterday's fun thing was Discovery Green, a park in the middle of downtown. There was a giant playground, a garden, a lake, and a ton of other great stuff, but the highlight was definitely the fountains they had for kids to play in. Jackson, of course, had a blast.

Jackson was the youngest one out there, but he had a great time running around and playing in the water. And yes, those are just his regular shorts that he's wearing. Don't judge.

After we got Jackson all dried off, we walked around for a while and checked out the rest of the park. It's a really neat place and we'll definitely be back.

Right before we left, a nice couple stopped and offered to take our picture. Have we mentioned how friendly people are here?

Yep. Texas is great.

A visitor!

After just a few short weeks in Texas, we had our first visitor yesterday. My brother Jordan was on his way back from Mexico and had a three-hour layover in Houston, so we left church a little early and drove up to the airport to see him.

Jackson and Uncle Jordan

Since Jordan hadn't eaten, we took him to a Jack in the Box down the street for lunch. Jackson warmed up to him pretty quickly.

We had ourselves a great time getting caught up on each others' lives and hearing about Jordan's trip to Mexico. And stuffing our faces with Jack in the Box, of course.

When we were done we drove Jordan back to the airport so he could catch his connecting flight to Utah. Altogether we were able to spend a good couple of hours with him, which was awesome. Who said layovers are always a bad thing?

Thanks for stopping by, Jordan!

This is life... for now

What do you do when you have a job but you're not working yet? When you want to furnish your house but you don't have any money coming in? When you want to go explore a new city but it's so hot and muggy that you break a sweat just thinking about walking to your car?

We can tell you.

One of the first things we did was this:

To say this kid loves the water would be an understatement. We've gone swimming at least once a week since getting here, and he has a ball every time—as seen here:

We've also had a great time getting acquainted with the food in Houston—and yes, it's everything it's cracked up to be. Here we are celebrating the job offer with hamburgers the size of Jackson's head.

Please excuse the ridiculous faux hawk. A haircut is in order.

We also braved the heat to visit Hermann Park and feed the birds. This little guy loved running in the grass!

In the middle of all of that, there's been endless of cleaning, shopping, apartment hunting, picture hanging, nailing, hammering, sawing, painting, sweating, hanging out with Jen and her boyfriend, driving, and playing with the Little Man. And we've loved it. (Except for the sweating. We could do without that.)

So until I start my job on Wednesday, this is life for both of us—playing with Jackson at all hours of the day, meeting Jen for lunch at Jack in the Box, burning through the seventh season of How I Met Your Mother while the little guy takes his naps, going to the store every day for more things we need, and getting together with Jen for dinner. In a few days it will be over (though on the flip side, I'll be making money again—sort of necessary these days) so we're really enjoying it while it lasts.

This is life... for now. And we're loving it.

The wheels of progress

When we decided to go to Houston, the plan was to stay with Stephanie's sister Jen until I found work and we could move into our own apartment. We hoped to have a job and a place by the end of June but were prepared to stay as long as three months if we had to (though if we'd been there that long Jackson would have completely destroyed Jen's apartment).

But we were seriously blessed, and just over a week later we had both of those things.

Just a few days after we got to Houston I was offered the public awareness coordinator position at Enbridge, an oil & gas transport company. Enbridge owns and operates oil pipelines (one of theirs is the world's longest) and I'll be part of an effort to inform and educate residents and businesses about pipeline safety. This job is a huge blessing and opportunity. I'll be able to use my writing and communication skills while also learning a ton of new stuff. It's really just the kind of thing I was looking for.

Enbridge's U.S. headquarters in Houston—

I start work here next Wednesday

With a job nailed down, we started looking for an apartment. We signed the lease for one last Friday and were moved in by Saturday.

Here are some of the highlights:

1. It's literally just around the corner from Jen

2. It's close to the light rail, which I'll be able to take downtown to work every day

3. We already know the neighborhood, so no more getting lost

4. It's pretty cheap (we got it for a lower price because it had 1 bedroom and a den, but we put doors on the den and made it Jackson's bedroom. Boom.)

5. A bigger bedroom with two walk-in closets.... 'Nuff said.

Sure it's old, and sure we've seen a troubling amount of largish spiders already (can't we just have roaches like everyone else?), but overall we're really pleased with what we've got. We'll probably go somewhere else in a year, when we have more money and more time to look, but we think we've got a great place to start out.

So we feel very, very, very blessed. Everything has fallen into place and we continue to feel like we're supposed to be here. We miss everybody back home (AZ and UT) but we're really excited to be starting our new life here.

On the road

The day after Memorial Day we started on our big adventure. It was a two-day, 1,200-mile trip with a sick one-year-old in a car packed to the ceiling.

But it wasn't nearly as bad as it sounds. Jackson didn't cry much and actually slept most of the way. Steph and I had music and a Kindle to keep us sane. The freeway driving was great. And after a monster day of driving on Tuesday, we "only" had an eight-hour drive to Houston on Wednesday.

Jackson in his little nook

This was our view on the drive through New Mexico...

...and this was our conversation.

Steph: Uh, this is the Land of Enchantment?

Haha. For the record, we're sure New Mexico has awesome things to see—but we're pretty sure those things are not along I-10.

Stopping for food in Lordsburg, NM

Taking I-10 through El Paso, we could see the United States through one window and Mexico through the other. In some spots we could even see the border fence. Pretty crazy. This is Juarez from the freeway:

On our way through El Paso we stopped to visit my old house. We moved when I was 10, so it's been almost 18 years since I'd left. It was awesome to see it again.

We stopped in Ft. Stockton for the night. Jackson's fever was pretty high by then, and he wouldn't drink anything. He finally let us drop a little water from a straw into his mouth. We ran with that, trying to get him to laugh or open up so we could get some liquid in there with the straw or his medicine dropper. He didn't get very much, but it must have helped because in the morning his fever had broken.

(As a side note, there are times as parents that Steph and I look at each other and ask, "How on earth did we get here?" Sitting there at 1 a.m. with a medicine dropper full of water trying to get our kid to laugh was definitely one of those moments.)

Happy to be feeling a little better

Texfast

From sunup until sundown there was nothing but desolation on our first day of driving. But the second day we had rolling hills, grass, trees, and flowers growing alongside the road. We couldn't stop freaking out about how green everything was.

Stopping for lunch in Kerrville, Texas

Once we got through San Antonio, we started to get really excited. After 1,100 miles, you would start taking pictures like this, too:

Almost there!

We made it!

Jackson's birthday

While we were in Arizona, the Garrisons threw Jackson a birthday party (his birthday was on May 23 but they were nice and waited until I was in town to celebrate). We had some friends and family over for Mexican food, and then gave Jackson some cake to eat.

Who cared that he got another banana cake? Not this guy!

Sharing with Dad

Opening a present

Jackson and Mom

After the party Jackson got his first haircut. We basically just trimmed the hair on the back of his head (where it was starting to look like a mullet) and nipped some stray locks around his ears. It wasn't very much but it's made him look less like a baby/toddler and more like a little boy.

Happy birthday, Jackson! We love you, Little Man!